Phantasm (1979)AVCO Embassy Pictures
Directed By: Don Coscarelli
Produced By: D.A. Coscarelli
Written By: Don Coscarelli
Cast:
A. Michael Baldwin
Bill Thornbury
Reggie Bannister
Angus Scrimm
Release Date: March 28, 1979
Running Time: 88 min.
Language: English
Budget:$300,000 (estimated)
Following the death of their parents, 24 year old musician Jody Pearson (Bill Thornbury) raises his 13 year old brother Mike (A. Michael Baldwin). Jody is in a successful three-piece blues band with his friends Reggie (Reggie Bannister) and Tommy (Bill Cone). Reggie supplements his income as an ice cream vendor. Jody drives a black 1971 Plymouth Barracuda coupe.Two years later, Tommy is murdered in Morningside cemetery by a mysterious lady in lavender (Kathy Lester). When Jody and Reggie attend the funeral of their friend, Mike secretly tags along on his motorcycle. He hears strange noises in the cemetery and then sees the funeral director (The Tall Man) single-handedly lift Tommy's coffin into the back of a hearse. As he rides away, he is thrown from his bike.
Mike regularly visits a fortune teller (Mary Ellen Shaw) whose granddaughter (Terrie Kalbus) speaks for her. He tells her that he fears that Jody is going to leave and get his aunt to raise him. She tells him that if he leaves, Jody will take him along. Then he tells her about his frightening experience at Morningside. She produces a small black box and tells him to put his hand into it. The box grips his hand and he tells her it hurts. She tells him not to fear and as his panic subsides so the box relaxes its grip. She tells him that fear is the killer.
The fortune teller’s granddaughter visits Morningside and is not seen again.
Jody goes to a bar and meets the lady in lavender. He takes her to the cemetery to make love to her, and Mike follows to hide and watch. Mike is chased by something “brown and low to the ground” and interrupts his brother’s activity, unwittingly saving his life. Jody is unconvinced by Mike’s explanation.
Mike has a nightmare where the Tall Man looms over him and then hands grab him from either side. He later sees the Tall Man walking down the street. When Reggie opens his ice cream van, the Tall Man comes to a standstill, clearly affected by the cold. While working under Jody’s ‘Cuda, Mike hears the familiar sounds of the thing that chased him the other night. The car shakes and falls from its jack, pinning him to the ground. He sees a pair of feet and, from beneath the car, strikes out with a hammer. It’s Jody’s foot that he strikes and he’s still not buying Mike’s claim that something’s trying to get him.Arming himself with a hunting knife, Mike breaks into Morningside mortuary through a basement window. When the caretaker (Ken Jones) investigates, he hides in a casket. As Mike continues to search, the caretaker seizes him. Then a flying sphere appears and hurtles towards them. Mike struggles free and the sphere impales the caretaker, drilling into his head and killing him. The Tall Man appears and gives chase. Mike traps his pursuer’s fingers in a door and severs one with the knife. The Tall Man bleeds yellow goo. With a hooded dwarf at his heels, Mike escapes the building with the twitching finger as proof of the Tall Man’s unearthliness.
Jody finds Mike at home asleep, clutching a shotgun. When he sees the finger, still twitching, Jody finally believes Mike, who tells him the whole story. He decides to go to the sheriff with it and tells Mike to fetch the box containing the evidence. However, when Mike opens the box, the finger has transformed into a huge fly. The pair struggle with the creature and eventually manage to destroy it in the waste disposal grinder, just as Reggie arrives to witness the act.
Jody goes to Morningside alone and enters through the broken basement window. He is immediately attacked by a dwarf which he shoots and manages to escape. He is pursued by a white hearse but Mike arrives in the ‘Cuda and they drive off. The hearse gives chase and comes alongside. No one appears to be driving. Jody fires a shotgun at it and it crashes into a tree. The dwarf driving has been impaled by a branch. It’s Jody’s dead friend Tommy.
They stow Tommy in the freezer compartment of Reggie’s truck and return home. Jody cannot understand why Tommy’s body has been crushed down to half size. Mike worries that their parents may have suffered the same fate. Reggie wants to capture the Tall Man and brutally interrogate him. Jody tells Reg to take Mike to Sally’s (Lynn Eastman) antique store where he will be safe.
Mike goes home and tells Jody about the girls. Jody shuts Mike in his room and jams the door with a screwdriver. As Jody drives off, Mike uses a shotgun shell taped to a hammer to blast a hole in the door and escape. The Tall Man is waiting for him at the front door and locks him in the rear of a hearse. As they arrive at Morningside, Mike shoots out the rear screen and a tyre, escaping just before the car hits a telephone pole and explodes in flames.
Jody breaks into the family tomb to find his father’s coffin empty. Mike also finds this just before a sphere appears and flies towards him. Jody destroys it with a shotgun blast. Reggie also arrives and tells them that he had helped the girls to escape. The three enter a private room to find a store of barrels with shrunken bodies inside. At the other side of the room are two silver poles which are a gate to an alien world. Mike is pulled into the gate and sees dwarves emerging from barrels in a barren land. Jody pulls Mike out of the gate before he can be trapped there. Mike believes that the dwarves are being used as slaves and that they have been crushed down to withstand the high gravity and heat.
Suddenly they are thrown into darkness and attacked by dwarves. When the light comes on, Reggie is alone. He unwittingly activates the gate and the barrels are drawn through it. He manages to crawl out of the room and escape. Outside the building there is a great wind. The three are separated and run around calling to each other. Reggie finds the lady in lavender collapsed on the ground. She stabs him dead. She is the Tall Man.
Jody and Mike escape in the ‘Cuda before Morningside itself vanishes into the gate. Jody decides to lure the Tall Man into a 1000-foot deep mineshaft near Singer’s Creek. He leaves Mike at home while he goes off to camouflage the shaft and set the trap. The Tall Man breaks into the house through the window and Mike flees into the night. The Tall Man gives chase. Tombstones emerge from the ground and hands from the mud grip Mike’s ankles. The lady in lavender appears with a knife in her hand. Mike tells himself not to fear and runs on. Mike jumps over the concealed mineshaft and the Tall Man falls in. Jody triggers a landslide that seals the pit. Mike awakes in his bed. Has it all been a dream?
Mike tells Reggie about his dream. He is worried that the rocks won’t hold the Tall Man. Reggie says it is just a nightmare, brought on by Jody’s funeral last week. He died in a car wreck. But Mike is convinced that the Tall Man has taken his brother and parents. Reggie suggests taking a road trip and tells Mike to pack. In his room, Mike spies the Tall Man in his mirror. He turns and a dwarf’s hands pull him backwards through the mirror…
Phantasm is a low-budget cult classic horror movie produced in 1977 and released in 1979. It was directed, written, photographed, co-produced and edited by Don Coscarelli. It introduced The Tall Man (who was portrayed in the film and its sequels by Angus Scrimm), a supernatural and sadistic undertaker who turns the dead into dwarf zombies to do his bidding and take over the world. The Tall Man uses flying silver balls (referred to as Sentinel Spheres by fans) that contain a lethal pair of spiked blades and a drill that destroys the victim's brain. This film was re-released on DVD by Anchor Bay Entertainment on April 10th, 2007.
A number of deleted scenes have been included on various laserdisc and DVD releases over the years, and the MPAA originally assigned the film an X-rating, forcing Coscarelli to trim it for an R.
This movie was number 25 on the cable channel Bravo's list of the "100 Scariest Movie Moments".
It was followed by four sequels, Phantasm II, Phantasm III: Lord of the Dead, Phantasm IV: Oblivion, and in 2008, Phantasm V.
Buy Phantasm on DVD from Amazon.com:
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